Susan Mathew
Dep. Principal, Oasis Intl School
Susan is an educator and Deputy Principal of Oasis International School. A passionate educator - she is skilled in all aspects of school management from drafting policies to planning...
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Meet the mentor
Tricky Workplace Situation Handled
- jealousy, different working styles
- We have a grievance and complaint redressal system
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- Request employees to provide sufficient data to backup their suggestion, check if the suggestion is doable for all members with the same degree of ease, let people vote if there are more than one option
- redirect employees back to their colleague encouraging them to share their concern directly, offer help to prepare the complainant to prepare for the conversation, give feedback and followup
- Teams are often known to come together for workshops and trainings. In order to teach this skill, create a game with sample set of problems. Pair the participants and give them the hypothetical situation, and also allow for practice a leader offering help to prepare for the conversation.
- Give timely feedback, give feedback in private, use "I" statements, address only 2 issues at a time.
- Blake's approach is smart, because it focuses on the recipient of feedback and not on himself-what he wants to say
- I notice you have not been able to make it on time, is there anyway I can help you so that you can join the meeting couple of minutes early?
- I know you have lot of ideas to share, so would it be okay if I allow you to share your points uninterrupted at a later point of time?
- I see you have put in lot of effort getting this done, it looks good, but here are few things that will make it better, what do you think?
- Giving feedback is a skill, it requires patience, ability to listen and analyse. It needs conscious practice. We give feedback everyday and all the time. We can plan how we give feedback - think of the tone, the words we use. We could write down the first few times, observe how it went, reactions and results and keep improvising on it.
- The second one: He seems to be pleasant and non threatening. Looks like he will be willing to give sufficient time to the customer and will answer queries willingly
- Posture 1: Pros - willing listener, will stick to the point and mean business. Cons: a bit nervous, lack of interest. Posture 2: Pros: get the task done. Cons: dominating, not a listener, threatening
- First picture: attentive, smiling, engaged and enjoying the conversation. Second picture: facial expression, least interested, bored
- Smile Don't cross arms Make good eye contact Keep your body pointed toward your guest Nod at key places stand up straight
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- I think one of the ways to achieve and practice required body language would be to have mock sessions with the team.
- Listen, be patient, ask questions if you have a doubt, clarify with evidence if any.
- address it publicly, don't delete comments, embrace & thank, own it publicly, resolve problems properly and quickly
- When you receive negative comments, ask clients for specific points that made them unhappy, ask clients what exactly they were expecting. Own it up and resolve to improvise.
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- I noticed that a lot of parents were finding it difficult to help their pre-primary and primary kids adapt to online learning, they were not able to cope with the assignments and hence when I received negative feedback on the amount of assignments. I introduced weekly review day, where teachers assisted the students to complete the assignments in the online classes.
- ego, not listening, inability to see goals as common goals, instead they see it as individual goal, poor reward system
- share goals, allow for ideas, actively listen, understand each other's strengths and distribute work accordingly, trust each other, acknowledge contribution of each member
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- Be clear on the goal, distribute responsibilities according to each one's strength, set up members for success not failure, provide the resources, participate actively, ask for accountability, acknowledge the contribution of every member at the end of the task.
- ISB must go all out to meet the local people, interact with the local experts to learn the culture, set up community links and partnerships to share experiences, arranging for their own team to meet the local people and communities.
- An individual should be able to demonstrate openness, inclusiveness, sensitivity and an ability to interact respectfully with all people and understand individual's differences.
- I must engage and interact with locally based international community, connect links with people from different backgrounds, bring students from different backgrounds together for activities, explore and understand the existence multi-culture
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- My school largely comprises of single faith staff and students. I am one of the few with a different background. About 4 years back I initiated activities to mark and observe different festivals - there was an initial resistance, but eventually accepted, today our school has an increased number of staff & students from different faith.
- Collaborating, because it was not about me winning. I know if my team wins, I win.
- Collaboration because there are still several departments and individuals that work in Silos.
- I have been part of teams taking incharge as lead member to conduct events in my organisation. I found that demonstration is one of the best ways to train or mentor someone, show how to do, provide resources, discuss, talk, listen are also also some of the best way to collaborate.
- No the environment is not conducive to relationship building. One way to improve the situation is to have a system that rewards collaborative work rather than individual rewards.
- The team must first understand each other, understand the company and the product, collaborate with other departments in the organisation. They should be willing to listen, ask for feedback, respond promptly, have frequent conversations
- common goal, identifying and leveraging each others strengths, sharing ideas, designing, sharing responsibilities, team work, accountability,
- Yes I do. This allows for open communication, helps me understand the abilities of a person so that I can provide support where needed and encourage the member to leverage her strengths to move forward, helps me help the member succeed.
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- I feel it is important to meet the team not just to discuss shop, but to engage in recreation activities that will build trust and help us work as team towards a common goal. Those skills then could be applied to the tasks at hand.
- The first thing would be to calm down Reem and offer to help her out. Find out from Reem the exact cause for the conflict, find out all about the problem, if required ask for expert advice or see if there has been any similar case in the past and find out how it was dealt with. Arrive at a solution and actively be present with Reem to meet the parent to address and resolve the concern.
- Being helpful has positive impact - reduces stress, anxiety, speeds up work and results, increases self esteem, improves relationships, creates positive and happy environment, helps practice empathy
- We could have put a buddy system in place, we missed out on being empathetic and giving a second chance.
- Having a buddy system in my opinion works well. Pair up a new member with an experienced member to mentor and help tide through challenging tasks and problems. Leaders must personally step in to help team members
- motivates individuals to take on challenging tasks, fosters high level of critical thinking, builds a sense of trust and responsibility, allows for active listening to everybody's perspectives, low levels of stress and anxiety leading to better results, increased self-esteem
- Sarah and Tom must divide their resources and their roles and share their expertise, strengths, tools and information to achieve their goal.
- Sometimes. My organisation collaborate with the wider circle of members rather that just the leadership team. They should more often get in other members to work on easier tasks.
- Group of people who rely on technology, working together from different geographic locations.
- Yes it is. To help people come together to work as a team, for recreation, for reviewing and reminding of our shared goals, to update.
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- Set clear protocols for professional meeting. For recreational meetings allow for some flexibility. Have an agenda, practice good etiquettes, if some one is going through a rough patch that you know of, don't discuss on the public forum.
- Melisa must work on presenting her points as her ideas, beliefs, findings & opinions rather than putting them as arguments. This will avoid withdrawal or avoidance. John must step back to reflect upon the consequence of his attitude, especially on the team. He must put the team before himself, it's about the organisation and not about him.
- Name the conflict Assess your role Brainstorm options communicate your findings engage in problem solving monitor results
- Assessing my role, brainstorming options, communicating, engaging in problem solving are the strategies I use. Monitoring results is something I need to use and work on.
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- Naming the conflict - pin pointing the exact cause is something that will help to work on rest of the strategies. Therefore, I would like to use this as a practice exercise during leadership training and team building activities.
- RTTU
- stretching one's abilities, understanding how realistic the goals are and how it can be achieved.
- unfair allocation, unrealistic expectation, ineffective way of using human resources.
- Having had the opportunity to be the lead member of events, I have had the chance to model what my leaders/mangers practiced - set goals, identify the skills required, identify the right remembers who have the skill sets to contribute, bring the team together - share goals, brainstorm to create a smart action plan, create a timeline, allocate tasks, follow up and work together.
- It helps to express oneself better. Positive and better rapport builds up during collaboration when one is able to express oneself, accept others' differences and help achieve group and individual success. While collaborating we tend to become less judgemental and learn to value others strengths to complement weaknesses.
- Disrespectful work environment can give rise to sexual and work place harassment. Disrespectful work environment will lead to disengaged and unhappy workplace.
- Ms. N - Business development: She is very creative and comes with innovative ideas. With family history of entrepreneurs, she has proved successful in fund raising events. Ms. L-Human Resources: Can easily connect with people. Is calm, composed by nature, yet means business. Has the ability to positively handle failures of employees. Ms. A - Finance: Is qualified and also known for her honesty and integrity. Has the knack to allocate resources wisely proving success at financial decisions.
- My workplace is partially conducive to respectful work relations because most of them work in silos and for self appreciation. A training in raising respectful work culture will help.
- It takes conscious effort to be respectful when things are not alright. I usually work in my head the words I would want to use to ensure a respectful conversation with a colleague, especially when the colleague has failed to complete or achieve a task.
- Selfish, not trustworthy, not empathetic, not committed
- Appreciate, praise, talk often, ask for ideas, ask for advice, ask for support, work to achieve results for the team not for self, avoid gossip, clarify one on one if any personal issues.
- As a leader one of the things I practice is to appreciate the team & not specific members every week on a public platform - this has helped me to create an inclusiveness where my team feels a sense of belongingness. Another practice of mine is to connect with members one on one to check on their well being, this has helped members to connect with me personally and freely when they have problems.
- Melinda
- Prioritize time and work, set specific time schedule for work, self and family and set strict boundaries, be consistent and persistent in sticking to your schedule, plan your work, don't put off work unless it's an emergency.
- Time to enjoy hobbies, time to take care of self, family and friends, stress free, better performance, satisfaction and happiness.
- 1. Define the problem 2. Put it in perspective 3. Choose your battles 4. Pick your solution 5. Commit
- I read, listen to music, spend time with my family, I connect with friends.
- One example I can give is; I have set clear boundaries to my team and encouraged them to do the same. I have set notifications to mute from 6.30 pm to 8.00 am. I do not respond to mails/messages on Saturday and Sunday - I encourage the same to my team members who have been following the same, we call each other only in an emergency which is extremely rare.
- 1. Build better relationship with every department. 2. Use internal departments as inspiration for innovation 3. Set measurable goals 4. Fail quickly 5. Leverage an outside partner.
- Enrol members from different departments, state your goals clearly, ask/check if everyone believes and agrees on the goals. Delegate work based on strengths and weaknesses, strategise ways that team members strengths/weakness complement rather than create competition, meet often for planning, discussions or for socializing to help build better relationship. Use design thinking to achieve goals.
- Most effective
- Most effective
- least effective
- Most effective
- High Success rate, better relationship, high creativity, better and innovative solutions, happy and successful workplace, highly motivated employees
- As a team, I make it point to meet them more often - for brainstorming sessions, for leisure activities. It's my habit to ask for ideas even though I tend to have ideas, I encourage them to talk to each other, learn from each other, make them share their experiences, resources.
- Soap bubbles. However, at times it can be a stormy weather, depending upon the moment of experiences
- I am strong, I can do all things to the best of my abilities that are in my capacity, I am able to encourage and motivate others, I can choose to be strong & happy in all circumstances.
- Since I spoke positivity to my inner thoughts in the last 30-seconds, yes I would allow a friend to speak to me in a similar manner.
- One of my practices has been to replace a negative thought immediately with a positive thought, to turn my focus to my strength when I find myself weak. I think this would be a good exercise to follow.
- I need to make progress in the given tasks and complete it successfully, resolve problems successfully
- joy, fulfilment, happiness, contentment
- Mindful is being aware. Mind full is a mind filled up or crammed with thoughts
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- When I only think of completing a task by hook or crook, and not being aware of who is involved, how it is being done, etc.
- Do one thing at a time, be consciously present at the task, remind your self about your capabilities and motivate yourself at regular intervals, be humble, maintain a positive attitude, be mindful of your team's strengths & weakness, have an attitude of gratitude, smile, practice quick mindful exercises.
- When working as a team on a challenging task or a big event, one way to do it is include quick and short exercises on mindfulness, encourage colleagues to stop & reflect, appreciate every task completed with success, motivate when needed.
- To-do lists, unexpected events, unexpected guests, unscheduled meetings, phone calls, health, lack of planning work.
- Right now in a position preparing me to venture out & take on newer challenges that will help me practice and apply my experiences.
- Hot cup of tea, meditating God's word, a new day with new opportunities.
- Meditating God's word, completing my tasks each day, spending time with my family, reading
- I would like to seek a new job with scope for higher designation
- Personally and professionally content life with an ability to mentor people both personal and professional areas of life
- Identify and acquire the necessary skills I currently lack to be able to move to another job with a higher designation.
- I must work on reviewing and reflecting on my personal profile to update it, identify resources that will help me acquire the new skills.
- Since we are in control of our thoughts and self, we can choose to be positive, we can choose positive actions that will yield positive results
- Unexpected tasks, unexpected guests, sometimes sheer laziness: I could keep the time duration realistic keeping in mind the possibility of unexpected tasks/guests and also speak to myself that I can handle it with ease and with joy. Sheer laziness-I could redirect my attention to the result I desire.
- Quiet time is something that I practice every day, to meditate God's word, to reflect and focus on self - this is a great way to self motivate, refresh my mind and realign my thoughts to the possibilities within me.
- It has made me more innovative in finding ways to socialise or celebrate with family & friends keeping in mind the safety & social distancing aspect. It has made me more innovative in finding ways to exercise the body. Adapting to a remote working schedule.
- Time management, challenges related to health & fitness, work-home balance
- Lack of sleep due to lack of physical activity - since I cannot follow strenuous exercise, I need to include 30 - 40 minutes brisk walking.
- Music has been one of my ways to relax. Positive self affirmations are also a great way to control anxiety.
- Helps us make the right decisions for us, helps us recognize areas for improvement, strengthens our personal relationship and work, raise our happiness quotient.
- I need to seek a better job opportunity for the next academic year. I need to seek a better job opportunity for the next academic year?
- Change of job for the next academic year better life style in terms of physical health
- Milestone 1: Update personal profile & resume Milestone 2: Research for job opportunities and select the most suitable ones. Milestone 3: Widen the research on selected organisations, get reviews, feedback Milestone 4: Application & interview Milestone 5: Decision success, fulfilment, excited about the new challenge
- Putting a timeline and plan in place is good way to make start. I would ask them to first make a list of the goals that they would want to achieve and put a broad time they would want to see it achieved. Then take each goal and draw up a mindmap to list the resources they would need to achieve the goal, identify what resources they have and what they don't. Then put down steps to acquire those resources or skills and to those steps add a timeline.
- A leader who takes responsibility of successes and failures even if one is not directly responsible for it
- 8. I have learnt to take responsibility even when it is not my mistake and I have dealt it with much ease because I make every effort to turn failures into learning opportunities to turn failure into success as much as possible.
- Jessica doesn't seem to follow the hierarchy or understand the model of accountability. Her manager is accountable and hence needs to be in the loop so that she can provide help to minimise the mistakes that Jessica tends to do. It is not about one person, but it is about a team/organisation.
- situtation 3
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- One of the first things to keep in mind is not waste time blaming oneself. Any error has scope for correction, so taking action to confess and correct is the best way to rise from failure to success. Owning up to a mistake and taking action will also boost self-esteem.
- Esteem. In the process of Self-actualization
- It is important to first understand your mentees position - is her physiological needs being met, does she feel safe & secure? Love & belongingness and self-esteem are the two stages, which is something many need to work on, because of certain social stigma they come with. Therefore, these are the two areas that my mentees would need a push on. Hence, one way to get them to practice is to organise more sessions that involve social interaction via team building activities. For self-esteem, mentors could we small tasks that mentees can easily achieve success and then go on to give challenging tasks, ensuring that mentees achieve success with little help. This kind of success will motivate the mentees to achieve more and later independently.
- strength
- strength
- weakness
- strength
- weakness
- strengths can be leveraged, weaknesses will be areas for improvement
- Documentation, planning, mentoring, encouraging, helping with something or someone outside my department or work profile
- few things I tend to procrastinate, fear of failure
- Accept my strengths and weaknesses, get advice, be willing to to take advice & feedback and then assess and calibrate those against one's job profile
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- Discuss and decide which would be the most dominant strength & weakness of theirs. Work out strategies that will help them exercise the dominant strength in other areas of work & use strategies to improve weakness. If their area of weakness is planning, then help them work on planning skills by breaking it down to a task planning, day planning, etc. We can demonstrate one for them to model.
- Because you are distracted.
- It does not allow me to achieve goals to my full potential. I may either do it as a mundane task meeting deadline or might put if off for some other time trying to give an excuse
- 8. Strategies to manage stress, stewarding.
- I would advise Martin to practice prioritising the unforeseen issues - take a moment and see what needs immediate attention and what can be given time. He must also set aside few minutes each day and make it a practice to reflect upon his goals and take the necessary action to move forward.
- 8. It helps me to persevere.
- One of the things that I do, is review my daily goals, making it a practice to achieve daily goals is a big boost for me to accomplish the weekly goals with ease. The fear of piled up work is something that can make me anxious and doing a huge chunk of tasks may affect the quality of work accomplished.
- 1. Set your own goals - based on the target given by your manager. 2. consider your KPI and write them down. 3. List 3 key wins for the week.
- S stands for specific goals M stands for Measurability of goals A stands for Attainable R stands for Realistic of relevant T stands for Time bound
- It can provide clarity on what we want to achieve. It gives direction to the goal setter and also motivates to take action and helps one to move forward.
- Yes I do. This helps me to break down my goals to small bits to achieve bigger goals. Also avoids piling up of tasks if I procrastinate and handling pending tasks can be stressful.
- It gives me clarity on my performance where I can actually see my strengths and weaknesses and work upon them.
- I do insist my team in the beginning has a blueprint of what has to be achieved in the academic year and ask them to draw up daily, weekly & monthly plans. I include short to-do tasks in my daily briefing and followup on that.
- Create a conducive or positive environment, analyze and investigate the situation in depth, explore alternatives, select a suitable alternative, evaluate the selected plan, implement or take action.
- Instead of rattling one sided information, Tom should have started a conversation to find out what exactly the client was attracted to. This would give Tom a chance to focus & direct his pitch on his client's need.
- Because it is not about one person winning. They have to help each other to win together
- The competition is among equals
- A Team is a group of people doing a common task. They can't play together because then it is not exciting game & no competition to win
- Sometimes it's my judgement of one person based on previous experience. I should be willing to trust, try and take risks.
- One of the ways to avoid judgment is to make a conscious effort to build on relationship skills - this will help avoid making judgement based on people, this will also help build trust and willingness to take risks.
- People get characterized into different groups. Those belonging to negatively stereotyped groups can experience diminished confidence , poor performance, loss of interest. Those belonging to positively stereotyped groups can see experience better self-esteem. However, positively stereotyped groups can make a negative impact if they tend to see themselves powerful over others.
- I need to shed off bias and honour and respect multiple perspectives, identify the common elements all members including me in the group, have open conversations, decisions to be free of bias - they should be fair based on facts, develop empathy for others.
- Stereotypes are generally acquired in early childhood. As an educator, I know I am also responsible for influencing my students. Therefore, most often I tend to be careful about my comments and the rapport I share with my students.
- Stereotypes can exert a powerful influence when making decisions, I have experienced this before. Hence, I often try my best to avoid making hasty decisions. I give myself time to think and gather necessary information before making decision.
- Team building activities are great way to teach the team to differentiate between opinions and facts. Questioning the question will help think critically. Even during team meetings or mentoring or when reflecting, it is important to ask questions and have information ready to support the answers.
- The more functions in the gadget, the more time you need to spend using them. The way we have already been interacting with so much ease, that it can't get any better. For a price like this, it is not the best investment. This gadget may not be such a game changer, as everyday there's a new product in the market claiming to be better than the rest.
- 1. Formulate your question 2. Gather your information 3. Apply the information 4. Consider the implications 5. Explore other points of view
- subjective
- subjective
- objective
- subjective
- objective
- It's a mix of negative and positive impact.
- My managers are manipulative My managers do not address grievances immediately
- One way to allow for critical thinking is to question the question. Gather information from authentic sources before you arrive at a decision
- Analyse the cause of the problem, think of alternative solutions, choose the best suited solution and implement the solution.
- Pay attention to gathering & focusing on facts, talk to the right personnel about the problem, involve the right expertise to discuss alternative solutions
- Team building activities in monthly PD sessions, focused on problem solving exercises or games will be a great idea for members to develop the necessary skills. Members could be give turns to conduct these exercises rather than just the trainers conducting it month after month.
- Facts can be proven, opinions cannot be proven as they are an expression of one's feelings. Opinions can be based on facts or emotions. Opinions can mislead. Facts are backed by evidence. Facts are objective , opinions are subjective. Facts can be universal while opinions change from person to person.
- Facts are important and I care about it.
- When I don't have evidence or documents to show the performance of my team mates.
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- From my experience, Whenever my team mates present something, I ask them for evidence. Collecting evidence for what my team mates want to prove is now a norm they follow. With everything going remote, I asked my team to collect feedback on a software rather than taking an oral feedback from parents.
- Having student led clubs and e news letter have proved successful this year compared to teacher led clubs.
- Focusing on success rather than failure and what elements contributed to success would be the key point I would like to teach my team
- Scenario 2. losing a customer is one of the biggest setbacks. Retaining customers is a skill and hence Carolina is exercising adaptive thinking in order to resolve both customer issues.
- helps us generate multiple alternative solutions & possibilities, gears us for expected and unexpected changes, helps us accommodate unexpected changes, helps us to manage change successfully, makes us happy and keeps us calm!
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- student performance. Get my think to focus on elements that boost student performance and then work towards it.
- One way to do it is to learn to have a strong impulse control so as to make opportunity to think and act rationally.
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- Productivity, improved self-esteem & confidence, motivation, improved performance, timely results, ability to achieve work-life balance, joy of accomplishment
- identifying hours you are most productive at will help to accomplish more tasks with less distraction & greater success. Knowing and accepting your limitations will help you choose the tasks carefully and complete it successfully-it will also eliminate wasting time. Breaking your big tasks into smaller ones will help you to prioritize the tasks and complete them step by step
- Stay away from distractions - making conscious effort to switch off devices that can be a distraction. Ability to identify & eliminate unnecessary tasks.
- One of the ways to teach the skill is to ask your mentee to put a timeline to the given task keeping in mind the deadline, help the mentee to list or break down the task into smaller chunks and give each task a timeline to complete. Follow up with mentee and help where needed
- Creativity, courage, curiosity, empathy, ability to analytical thinking, willing to experiment, take risks. agility, commitment, courage,
- Get out of silo, surround with people who don't think like you such as business modellers, experts, design thinkers, etc. ask questions, ask why not instead of why, think expansively
- Have an inclusive environment, break the silos, involve experts from various fields that are directly related to your field.
- Very often some section of the employees are not involved in brainstorming for ideas. We tend to pick members who will be responsible in executing a plan or getting the end result. It would be worth including a member or employee who may not be directly involved in executing a task. If a community service project is taken up, we involve people who we think are good negotiators, or only those who are responsible for the task. Why not ask the art teacher or your PE teachers to share their ideas or the assistant teacher or a kindergarten teacher to contribute their ideas?
Tricky Workplace Situation Handled
- jealousy, different working styles
- We have a grievance and complaint redressal system
- Request employees to provide sufficient data to backup their suggestion, check if the suggestion is doable for all members with the same degree of ease, let people vote if there are more than one option
- redirect employees back to their colleague encouraging them to share their concern directly, offer help to prepare the complainant to prepare for the conversation, give feedback and followup
- Teams are often known to come together for workshops and trainings. In order to teach this skill, create a game with sample set of problems. Pair the participants and give them the hypothetical situation, and also allow for practice a leader offering help to prepare for the conversation.
- Give timely feedback, give feedback in private, use "I" statements, address only 2 issues at a time.
- Blake's approach is smart, because it focuses on the recipient of feedback and not on himself-what he wants to say
- I notice you have not been able to make it on time, is there anyway I can help you so that you can join the meeting couple of minutes early?
- I know you have lot of ideas to share, so would it be okay if I allow you to share your points uninterrupted at a later point of time?
- I see you have put in lot of effort getting this done, it looks good, but here are few things that will make it better, what do you think?
- Giving feedback is a skill, it requires patience, ability to listen and analyse. It needs conscious practice. We give feedback everyday and all the time. We can plan how we give feedback - think of the tone, the words we use. We could write down the first few times, observe how it went, reactions and results and keep improvising on it.
- The second one: He seems to be pleasant and non threatening. Looks like he will be willing to give sufficient time to the customer and will answer queries willingly
- Posture 1: Pros - willing listener, will stick to the point and mean business. Cons: a bit nervous, lack of interest. Posture 2: Pros: get the task done. Cons: dominating, not a listener, threatening
- First picture: attentive, smiling, engaged and enjoying the conversation. Second picture: facial expression, least interested, bored
- Smile Don't cross arms Make good eye contact Keep your body pointed toward your guest Nod at key places stand up straight
- I think one of the ways to achieve and practice required body language would be to have mock sessions with the team.
- Listen, be patient, ask questions if you have a doubt, clarify with evidence if any.
- address it publicly, don't delete comments, embrace & thank, own it publicly, resolve problems properly and quickly
- When you receive negative comments, ask clients for specific points that made them unhappy, ask clients what exactly they were expecting. Own it up and resolve to improvise.
- I noticed that a lot of parents were finding it difficult to help their pre-primary and primary kids adapt to online learning, they were not able to cope with the assignments and hence when I received negative feedback on the amount of assignments. I introduced weekly review day, where teachers assisted the students to complete the assignments in the online classes.
- ego, not listening, inability to see goals as common goals, instead they see it as individual goal, poor reward system
- share goals, allow for ideas, actively listen, understand each other's strengths and distribute work accordingly, trust each other, acknowledge contribution of each member
- Be clear on the goal, distribute responsibilities according to each one's strength, set up members for success not failure, provide the resources, participate actively, ask for accountability, acknowledge the contribution of every member at the end of the task.
- ISB must go all out to meet the local people, interact with the local experts to learn the culture, set up community links and partnerships to share experiences, arranging for their own team to meet the local people and communities.
- An individual should be able to demonstrate openness, inclusiveness, sensitivity and an ability to interact respectfully with all people and understand individual's differences.
- I must engage and interact with locally based international community, connect links with people from different backgrounds, bring students from different backgrounds together for activities, explore and understand the existence multi-culture
- My school largely comprises of single faith staff and students. I am one of the few with a different background. About 4 years back I initiated activities to mark and observe different festivals - there was an initial resistance, but eventually accepted, today our school has an increased number of staff & students from different faith.
- Collaborating, because it was not about me winning. I know if my team wins, I win.
- Collaboration because there are still several departments and individuals that work in Silos.
- I have been part of teams taking incharge as lead member to conduct events in my organisation. I found that demonstration is one of the best ways to train or mentor someone, show how to do, provide resources, discuss, talk, listen are also also some of the best way to collaborate.
- No the environment is not conducive to relationship building. One way to improve the situation is to have a system that rewards collaborative work rather than individual rewards.
- The team must first understand each other, understand the company and the product, collaborate with other departments in the organisation. They should be willing to listen, ask for feedback, respond promptly, have frequent conversations
- common goal, identifying and leveraging each others strengths, sharing ideas, designing, sharing responsibilities, team work, accountability,
- Yes I do. This allows for open communication, helps me understand the abilities of a person so that I can provide support where needed and encourage the member to leverage her strengths to move forward, helps me help the member succeed.
- I feel it is important to meet the team not just to discuss shop, but to engage in recreation activities that will build trust and help us work as team towards a common goal. Those skills then could be applied to the tasks at hand.
- The first thing would be to calm down Reem and offer to help her out. Find out from Reem the exact cause for the conflict, find out all about the problem, if required ask for expert advice or see if there has been any similar case in the past and find out how it was dealt with. Arrive at a solution and actively be present with Reem to meet the parent to address and resolve the concern.
- Being helpful has positive impact - reduces stress, anxiety, speeds up work and results, increases self esteem, improves relationships, creates positive and happy environment, helps practice empathy
- We could have put a buddy system in place, we missed out on being empathetic and giving a second chance.
- Having a buddy system in my opinion works well. Pair up a new member with an experienced member to mentor and help tide through challenging tasks and problems. Leaders must personally step in to help team members
- motivates individuals to take on challenging tasks, fosters high level of critical thinking, builds a sense of trust and responsibility, allows for active listening to everybody's perspectives, low levels of stress and anxiety leading to better results, increased self-esteem
- Sarah and Tom must divide their resources and their roles and share their expertise, strengths, tools and information to achieve their goal.
- Sometimes. My organisation collaborate with the wider circle of members rather that just the leadership team. They should more often get in other members to work on easier tasks.
- Group of people who rely on technology, working together from different geographic locations.
- Yes it is. To help people come together to work as a team, for recreation, for reviewing and reminding of our shared goals, to update.
- Set clear protocols for professional meeting. For recreational meetings allow for some flexibility. Have an agenda, practice good etiquettes, if some one is going through a rough patch that you know of, don't discuss on the public forum.
- Melisa must work on presenting her points as her ideas, beliefs, findings & opinions rather than putting them as arguments. This will avoid withdrawal or avoidance. John must step back to reflect upon the consequence of his attitude, especially on the team. He must put the team before himself, it's about the organisation and not about him.
- Name the conflict Assess your role Brainstorm options communicate your findings engage in problem solving monitor results
- Assessing my role, brainstorming options, communicating, engaging in problem solving are the strategies I use. Monitoring results is something I need to use and work on.
- Naming the conflict - pin pointing the exact cause is something that will help to work on rest of the strategies. Therefore, I would like to use this as a practice exercise during leadership training and team building activities.
- RTTU
- stretching one's abilities, understanding how realistic the goals are and how it can be achieved.
- unfair allocation, unrealistic expectation, ineffective way of using human resources.
- Having had the opportunity to be the lead member of events, I have had the chance to model what my leaders/mangers practiced - set goals, identify the skills required, identify the right remembers who have the skill sets to contribute, bring the team together - share goals, brainstorm to create a smart action plan, create a timeline, allocate tasks, follow up and work together.
- It helps to express oneself better. Positive and better rapport builds up during collaboration when one is able to express oneself, accept others' differences and help achieve group and individual success. While collaborating we tend to become less judgemental and learn to value others strengths to complement weaknesses.
- Disrespectful work environment can give rise to sexual and work place harassment. Disrespectful work environment will lead to disengaged and unhappy workplace.
- Ms. N - Business development: She is very creative and comes with innovative ideas. With family history of entrepreneurs, she has proved successful in fund raising events. Ms. L-Human Resources: Can easily connect with people. Is calm, composed by nature, yet means business. Has the ability to positively handle failures of employees. Ms. A - Finance: Is qualified and also known for her honesty and integrity. Has the knack to allocate resources wisely proving success at financial decisions.
- My workplace is partially conducive to respectful work relations because most of them work in silos and for self appreciation. A training in raising respectful work culture will help.
- It takes conscious effort to be respectful when things are not alright. I usually work in my head the words I would want to use to ensure a respectful conversation with a colleague, especially when the colleague has failed to complete or achieve a task.
- Selfish, not trustworthy, not empathetic, not committed
- Appreciate, praise, talk often, ask for ideas, ask for advice, ask for support, work to achieve results for the team not for self, avoid gossip, clarify one on one if any personal issues.
- As a leader one of the things I practice is to appreciate the team & not specific members every week on a public platform - this has helped me to create an inclusiveness where my team feels a sense of belongingness. Another practice of mine is to connect with members one on one to check on their well being, this has helped members to connect with me personally and freely when they have problems.
- Melinda
- Prioritize time and work, set specific time schedule for work, self and family and set strict boundaries, be consistent and persistent in sticking to your schedule, plan your work, don't put off work unless it's an emergency.
- Time to enjoy hobbies, time to take care of self, family and friends, stress free, better performance, satisfaction and happiness.
- 1. Define the problem 2. Put it in perspective 3. Choose your battles 4. Pick your solution 5. Commit
- I read, listen to music, spend time with my family, I connect with friends.
- One example I can give is; I have set clear boundaries to my team and encouraged them to do the same. I have set notifications to mute from 6.30 pm to 8.00 am. I do not respond to mails/messages on Saturday and Sunday - I encourage the same to my team members who have been following the same, we call each other only in an emergency which is extremely rare.
- 1. Build better relationship with every department. 2. Use internal departments as inspiration for innovation 3. Set measurable goals 4. Fail quickly 5. Leverage an outside partner.
- Enrol members from different departments, state your goals clearly, ask/check if everyone believes and agrees on the goals. Delegate work based on strengths and weaknesses, strategise ways that team members strengths/weakness complement rather than create competition, meet often for planning, discussions or for socializing to help build better relationship. Use design thinking to achieve goals.
- Most effective
- Most effective
- least effective
- Most effective
- High Success rate, better relationship, high creativity, better and innovative solutions, happy and successful workplace, highly motivated employees
- As a team, I make it point to meet them more often - for brainstorming sessions, for leisure activities. It's my habit to ask for ideas even though I tend to have ideas, I encourage them to talk to each other, learn from each other, make them share their experiences, resources.
- Soap bubbles. However, at times it can be a stormy weather, depending upon the moment of experiences
- I am strong, I can do all things to the best of my abilities that are in my capacity, I am able to encourage and motivate others, I can choose to be strong & happy in all circumstances.
- Since I spoke positivity to my inner thoughts in the last 30-seconds, yes I would allow a friend to speak to me in a similar manner.
- One of my practices has been to replace a negative thought immediately with a positive thought, to turn my focus to my strength when I find myself weak. I think this would be a good exercise to follow.
- I need to make progress in the given tasks and complete it successfully, resolve problems successfully
- joy, fulfilment, happiness, contentment
- Mindful is being aware. Mind full is a mind filled up or crammed with thoughts
- When I only think of completing a task by hook or crook, and not being aware of who is involved, how it is being done, etc.
- Do one thing at a time, be consciously present at the task, remind your self about your capabilities and motivate yourself at regular intervals, be humble, maintain a positive attitude, be mindful of your team's strengths & weakness, have an attitude of gratitude, smile, practice quick mindful exercises.
- When working as a team on a challenging task or a big event, one way to do it is include quick and short exercises on mindfulness, encourage colleagues to stop & reflect, appreciate every task completed with success, motivate when needed.
- To-do lists, unexpected events, unexpected guests, unscheduled meetings, phone calls, health, lack of planning work.
- Right now in a position preparing me to venture out & take on newer challenges that will help me practice and apply my experiences.
- Hot cup of tea, meditating God's word, a new day with new opportunities.
- Meditating God's word, completing my tasks each day, spending time with my family, reading
- I would like to seek a new job with scope for higher designation
- Personally and professionally content life with an ability to mentor people both personal and professional areas of life
- Identify and acquire the necessary skills I currently lack to be able to move to another job with a higher designation.
- I must work on reviewing and reflecting on my personal profile to update it, identify resources that will help me acquire the new skills.
- Since we are in control of our thoughts and self, we can choose to be positive, we can choose positive actions that will yield positive results
- Unexpected tasks, unexpected guests, sometimes sheer laziness: I could keep the time duration realistic keeping in mind the possibility of unexpected tasks/guests and also speak to myself that I can handle it with ease and with joy. Sheer laziness-I could redirect my attention to the result I desire.
- Quiet time is something that I practice every day, to meditate God's word, to reflect and focus on self - this is a great way to self motivate, refresh my mind and realign my thoughts to the possibilities within me.
- It has made me more innovative in finding ways to socialise or celebrate with family & friends keeping in mind the safety & social distancing aspect. It has made me more innovative in finding ways to exercise the body. Adapting to a remote working schedule.
- Time management, challenges related to health & fitness, work-home balance
- Lack of sleep due to lack of physical activity - since I cannot follow strenuous exercise, I need to include 30 - 40 minutes brisk walking.
- Music has been one of my ways to relax. Positive self affirmations are also a great way to control anxiety.
- Helps us make the right decisions for us, helps us recognize areas for improvement, strengthens our personal relationship and work, raise our happiness quotient.
- I need to seek a better job opportunity for the next academic year. I need to seek a better job opportunity for the next academic year?
- Change of job for the next academic year better life style in terms of physical health
- Milestone 1: Update personal profile & resume Milestone 2: Research for job opportunities and select the most suitable ones. Milestone 3: Widen the research on selected organisations, get reviews, feedback Milestone 4: Application & interview Milestone 5: Decision success, fulfilment, excited about the new challenge
- Putting a timeline and plan in place is good way to make start. I would ask them to first make a list of the goals that they would want to achieve and put a broad time they would want to see it achieved. Then take each goal and draw up a mindmap to list the resources they would need to achieve the goal, identify what resources they have and what they don't. Then put down steps to acquire those resources or skills and to those steps add a timeline.
- A leader who takes responsibility of successes and failures even if one is not directly responsible for it
- 8. I have learnt to take responsibility even when it is not my mistake and I have dealt it with much ease because I make every effort to turn failures into learning opportunities to turn failure into success as much as possible.
- Jessica doesn't seem to follow the hierarchy or understand the model of accountability. Her manager is accountable and hence needs to be in the loop so that she can provide help to minimise the mistakes that Jessica tends to do. It is not about one person, but it is about a team/organisation.
- situtation 3
- One of the first things to keep in mind is not waste time blaming oneself. Any error has scope for correction, so taking action to confess and correct is the best way to rise from failure to success. Owning up to a mistake and taking action will also boost self-esteem.
- Esteem. In the process of Self-actualization
- It is important to first understand your mentees position - is her physiological needs being met, does she feel safe & secure? Love & belongingness and self-esteem are the two stages, which is something many need to work on, because of certain social stigma they come with. Therefore, these are the two areas that my mentees would need a push on. Hence, one way to get them to practice is to organise more sessions that involve social interaction via team building activities. For self-esteem, mentors could we small tasks that mentees can easily achieve success and then go on to give challenging tasks, ensuring that mentees achieve success with little help. This kind of success will motivate the mentees to achieve more and later independently.
- strength
- strength
- weakness
- strength
- weakness
- strengths can be leveraged, weaknesses will be areas for improvement
- Documentation, planning, mentoring, encouraging, helping with something or someone outside my department or work profile
- few things I tend to procrastinate, fear of failure
- Accept my strengths and weaknesses, get advice, be willing to to take advice & feedback and then assess and calibrate those against one's job profile
- Discuss and decide which would be the most dominant strength & weakness of theirs. Work out strategies that will help them exercise the dominant strength in other areas of work & use strategies to improve weakness. If their area of weakness is planning, then help them work on planning skills by breaking it down to a task planning, day planning, etc. We can demonstrate one for them to model.
- Because you are distracted.
- It does not allow me to achieve goals to my full potential. I may either do it as a mundane task meeting deadline or might put if off for some other time trying to give an excuse
- 8. Strategies to manage stress, stewarding.
- I would advise Martin to practice prioritising the unforeseen issues - take a moment and see what needs immediate attention and what can be given time. He must also set aside few minutes each day and make it a practice to reflect upon his goals and take the necessary action to move forward.
- 8. It helps me to persevere.
- One of the things that I do, is review my daily goals, making it a practice to achieve daily goals is a big boost for me to accomplish the weekly goals with ease. The fear of piled up work is something that can make me anxious and doing a huge chunk of tasks may affect the quality of work accomplished.
- 1. Set your own goals - based on the target given by your manager. 2. consider your KPI and write them down. 3. List 3 key wins for the week.
- S stands for specific goals M stands for Measurability of goals A stands for Attainable R stands for Realistic of relevant T stands for Time bound
- It can provide clarity on what we want to achieve. It gives direction to the goal setter and also motivates to take action and helps one to move forward.
- Yes I do. This helps me to break down my goals to small bits to achieve bigger goals. Also avoids piling up of tasks if I procrastinate and handling pending tasks can be stressful.
- It gives me clarity on my performance where I can actually see my strengths and weaknesses and work upon them.
- I do insist my team in the beginning has a blueprint of what has to be achieved in the academic year and ask them to draw up daily, weekly & monthly plans. I include short to-do tasks in my daily briefing and followup on that.
- Create a conducive or positive environment, analyze and investigate the situation in depth, explore alternatives, select a suitable alternative, evaluate the selected plan, implement or take action.
- Instead of rattling one sided information, Tom should have started a conversation to find out what exactly the client was attracted to. This would give Tom a chance to focus & direct his pitch on his client's need.
- Because it is not about one person winning. They have to help each other to win together
- The competition is among equals
- A Team is a group of people doing a common task. They can't play together because then it is not exciting game & no competition to win
- Sometimes it's my judgement of one person based on previous experience. I should be willing to trust, try and take risks.
- One of the ways to avoid judgment is to make a conscious effort to build on relationship skills - this will help avoid making judgement based on people, this will also help build trust and willingness to take risks.
- People get characterized into different groups. Those belonging to negatively stereotyped groups can experience diminished confidence , poor performance, loss of interest. Those belonging to positively stereotyped groups can see experience better self-esteem. However, positively stereotyped groups can make a negative impact if they tend to see themselves powerful over others.
- I need to shed off bias and honour and respect multiple perspectives, identify the common elements all members including me in the group, have open conversations, decisions to be free of bias - they should be fair based on facts, develop empathy for others.
- Stereotypes are generally acquired in early childhood. As an educator, I know I am also responsible for influencing my students. Therefore, most often I tend to be careful about my comments and the rapport I share with my students.
- Stereotypes can exert a powerful influence when making decisions, I have experienced this before. Hence, I often try my best to avoid making hasty decisions. I give myself time to think and gather necessary information before making decision.
- Team building activities are great way to teach the team to differentiate between opinions and facts. Questioning the question will help think critically. Even during team meetings or mentoring or when reflecting, it is important to ask questions and have information ready to support the answers.
- The more functions in the gadget, the more time you need to spend using them. The way we have already been interacting with so much ease, that it can't get any better. For a price like this, it is not the best investment. This gadget may not be such a game changer, as everyday there's a new product in the market claiming to be better than the rest.
- 1. Formulate your question 2. Gather your information 3. Apply the information 4. Consider the implications 5. Explore other points of view
- subjective
- subjective
- objective
- subjective
- objective
- It's a mix of negative and positive impact.
- My managers are manipulative My managers do not address grievances immediately
- One way to allow for critical thinking is to question the question. Gather information from authentic sources before you arrive at a decision
- Analyse the cause of the problem, think of alternative solutions, choose the best suited solution and implement the solution.
- Pay attention to gathering & focusing on facts, talk to the right personnel about the problem, involve the right expertise to discuss alternative solutions
- Team building activities in monthly PD sessions, focused on problem solving exercises or games will be a great idea for members to develop the necessary skills. Members could be give turns to conduct these exercises rather than just the trainers conducting it month after month.
- Facts can be proven, opinions cannot be proven as they are an expression of one's feelings. Opinions can be based on facts or emotions. Opinions can mislead. Facts are backed by evidence. Facts are objective , opinions are subjective. Facts can be universal while opinions change from person to person.
- Facts are important and I care about it.
- When I don't have evidence or documents to show the performance of my team mates.
- From my experience, Whenever my team mates present something, I ask them for evidence. Collecting evidence for what my team mates want to prove is now a norm they follow. With everything going remote, I asked my team to collect feedback on a software rather than taking an oral feedback from parents.
- Having student led clubs and e news letter have proved successful this year compared to teacher led clubs.
- Focusing on success rather than failure and what elements contributed to success would be the key point I would like to teach my team
- Scenario 2. losing a customer is one of the biggest setbacks. Retaining customers is a skill and hence Carolina is exercising adaptive thinking in order to resolve both customer issues.
- helps us generate multiple alternative solutions & possibilities, gears us for expected and unexpected changes, helps us accommodate unexpected changes, helps us to manage change successfully, makes us happy and keeps us calm!
- student performance. Get my think to focus on elements that boost student performance and then work towards it.
- One way to do it is to learn to have a strong impulse control so as to make opportunity to think and act rationally.
- Productivity, improved self-esteem & confidence, motivation, improved performance, timely results, ability to achieve work-life balance, joy of accomplishment
- identifying hours you are most productive at will help to accomplish more tasks with less distraction & greater success. Knowing and accepting your limitations will help you choose the tasks carefully and complete it successfully-it will also eliminate wasting time. Breaking your big tasks into smaller ones will help you to prioritize the tasks and complete them step by step
- Stay away from distractions - making conscious effort to switch off devices that can be a distraction. Ability to identify & eliminate unnecessary tasks.
- One of the ways to teach the skill is to ask your mentee to put a timeline to the given task keeping in mind the deadline, help the mentee to list or break down the task into smaller chunks and give each task a timeline to complete. Follow up with mentee and help where needed
- Creativity, courage, curiosity, empathy, ability to analytical thinking, willing to experiment, take risks. agility, commitment, courage,
- Get out of silo, surround with people who don't think like you such as business modellers, experts, design thinkers, etc. ask questions, ask why not instead of why, think expansively
- Have an inclusive environment, break the silos, involve experts from various fields that are directly related to your field.
- Very often some section of the employees are not involved in brainstorming for ideas. We tend to pick members who will be responsible in executing a plan or getting the end result. It would be worth including a member or employee who may not be directly involved in executing a task. If a community service project is taken up, we involve people who we think are good negotiators, or only those who are responsible for the task. Why not ask the art teacher or your PE teachers to share their ideas or the assistant teacher or a kindergarten teacher to contribute their ideas?
